# Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary

The Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary is one of the annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. It was first presented in 2004 with Jonathan Demme's The Agronomist being the first recipient of the award.

## Winners and nominees
### 2000s

| Year | Film | Director(s) |
| 2004 | The Agronomist | Jonathan Demme |
| 2004 | Bright Leaves | Ross McElwee |
| 2004 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | Michael Moore |
| 2004 | In the Realms of the Unreal | Jessica Yu |
| 2004 | Tarnation | Jonathan Caouette |
| 2005 | Murderball | Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro |
| 2005 | Ballets Russes | Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller |
| 2005 | Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room | Alex Gibney |
| 2005 | Grizzly Man | Werner Herzog |
| 2005 | William Eggleston in the Real World | Michael Almereyda |
| 2006 | Iraq in Fragments | James Longley |
| 2006 | Deliver Us from Evil | Amy J. Berg |
| 2006 | Following Sean | Ralph Arlyck |
| 2006 | An Inconvenient Truth | Davis Guggenheim |
| 2006 | Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple | Stanley Nelson |
| 2007 | Sicko | Michael Moore |
| 2007 | The Devil Came on Horseback | Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg |
| 2007 | Man from Plains | Jonathan Demme |
| 2007 | My Kid Could Paint That | Amir Bar-Lev |
| 2007 | Taxi to the Dark Side | Alex Gibney |
| 2008 | Trouble the Water | Tia Lessin and Carl Deal |
| 2008 | Chris & Don. A Love Story | Guido Santi and Tina Mascara |
| 2008 | Encounters at the End of the World | Werner Herzog |
| 2008 | Man on Wire | James Marsh |
| 2008 | Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired | Marina Zenovich |
| 2009 | Food, Inc. | Robert Kenner |
| 2009 | Good Hair | Jeff Stilson |
| 2009 | My Neighbor, My Killer | Anne Aghion |
| 2009 | Paradise | Michael Almereyda |
| 2009 | Tyson | James Toback |

### 2010s

| Year | Film | Director(s) | Ref. |
| 2010 | The Oath | Laura Poitras | |
| 2010 | 12th & Delaware | Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing | |
| 2010 | Inside Job | Charles Ferguson | |
| 2010 | Public Speaking | Martin Scorsese | |
| 2010 | Sweetgrass | Lucien Castaing-Taylor | |
| 2011 | Better This World | Kelly Duane and Katie Galloway | |
| 2011 | Bill Cunningham New York | Richard Press | |
| 2011 | Hell and Back Again | Danfung Dennis | |
| 2011 | The Interrupters | Steve James | |
| 2011 | The Woodmans | Scott Willis | |
| 2012 | How to Survive a Plague | David France | [10] [11] |
| 2012 | Detropia | Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing | [10] [11] |
| 2012 | Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present | Matthew Akers and Jeff Dupre | [10] [11] |
| 2012 | Room 237 | Rodney Ascher | [10] [11] |
| 2012 | The Waiting Room | Peter Nicks | [10] [11] |
| 2013 | The Act of Killing | Joshua Oppenheimer | |
| 2013 | The Crash Reel | Lucy Walker | |
| 2013 | First Cousin Once Removed | Alan Berliner | |
| 2013 | Let the Fire Burn | Jason Osder | |
| 2013 | Our Nixon | Penny Lane | |
| 2014 | Citizenfour | Laura Poitras | |
| 2014 | Actress | Robert Greene | |
| 2014 | Life Itself | Steve James | |
| 2014 | Manakamana | Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez | |
| 2014 | Point and Shoot | Marshall Curry | |
| 2015 | The Look of Silence | Joshua Oppenheimer | |
| 2015 | Approaching the Elephant | Amanda Wilder | |
| 2015 | Cartel Land | Matthew Heineman | |
| 2015 | Heart of a Dog | Laurie Anderson | |
| 2015 | Listen to Me Marlon | Stevan Riley | |
| 2016 | O.J.: Made in America | Ezra Edelman | |
| 2016 | Cameraperson | Kirsten Johnson | |
| 2016 | I Am Not Your Negro | Raoul Peck | |
| 2016 | Tower | Keith Maitland | |
| 2016 | Weiner | Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg | |
| 2017 | Strong Island | Yance Ford | |
| 2017 | Ex Libris: The New York Public Library | Frederick Wiseman | |
| 2017 | Rat Film | Theo Anthony | |
| 2017 | Whose Streets? | Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis | |
| 2017 | The Work | Jairus McLeary and Gethin Aldous | |
| 2018 | Hale County This Morning, This Evening | RaMell Ross | |
| 2018 | Bisbee '17 | Robert Greene | |
| 2018 | Minding the Gap | Bing Liu | |
| 2018 | Shirkers | Sandi Tan | |
| 2018 | Won't You Be My Neighbor? | Morgan Neville | |
| 2019 | American Factory | Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert | |
| 2019 | Apollo 11 | Todd Douglas Miller | |
| 2019 | The Edge of Democracy | Petra Costa | |
| 2019 | Midnight Traveler | Hassan Fazili | |
| 2019 | One Child Nation | Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang | |

### 2020s

| Year | Film | Director(s) | Ref. |
| 2020 | A Thousand Cuts | Ramona Diaz | [19] [20] |
| 2020 | Time | Garrett Bradley | [19] [20] |
| 2020 | 76 Days | Hao Wu, Weixi Chen and Anonymous | [19] [20] |
| 2020 | City Hall | Frederick Wiseman | [19] [20] |
| 2020 | Our Time Machine | Yang Sun and S. Leo Chiang | [19] [20] |
| 2021 | Flee | Jonas Poher Rasmussen | [21] [22] |
| 2021 | Ascension | Jessica Kingdon | [21] [22] |
| 2021 | Faya Dayi | Jessica Beshir | [21] [22] |
| 2021 | President | Camilla Nielsson | [21] [22] |
| 2021 | Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) | Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson | [21] [22] |
| 2022 | All That Breathes | Shaunak Sen | |
| 2022 | All the Beauty and the Bloodshed | Laura Poitras | |
| 2022 | I Didn't See You There | Reid Davenport | |
| 2022 | The Territory | Alex Pritz | |
| 2022 | What We Leave Behind | Iliana Sosa | |
| 2023 | Four Daughters | Kaouther Ben Hania | |
| 2023 | 20 Days in Mariupol | Mstyslav Chernov | |
| 2023 | Against the Tide | Sarvnik Kaur | |
| 2023 | Apolonia, Apolonia | Lea Glob | |
| 2023 | Our Body | Claire Simon | |
| 2024 | No Other Land | Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor | |
| 2024 | Dahomey | Mati Diop | |
| 2024 | Intercepted | Oksana Karpovych | |
| 2024 | Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat | Johan Grimonprez | |
| 2024 | Sugarcane | Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie | |
| 2024 | Union | Brett Story and Stephen Maing | |